Like There's Nobody Watching
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: "Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr. Set just post-Serenity.


**Since the Leaves on the Wind comics came out I've had about a dozen requests to write a "Mal and Inara getting together" fic. I've been trying since LOTW ended, but I've found it pretty difficult, due to my lack of experience writing Firefly and the uniqueness of the characters. I'll give it another go at some point, more than likely, but here is what I have for now. It takes place "shortly after" the movie, since that's when Zack Whedon**

Inara sat on the edge of her old bed, her arms straight, pushing into the mattress. Almost everyone on the ship had, since the funeral, offered her a place in the passenger dorms, but the idea just felt wrong to her. Although the shuttle was far from the homey, warm place that she had made it, it felt more like home than the dorms would. She had left a place of guaranteed employment, safety – well, relative safety – and hot food, and returned to Serenity, a space of uncertainty, pain, and constant danger, but she felt a sense of peace here that she'd never felt anywhere else.

There was a tapping at her door. "_Qing jin_."

"Hey." Mal stepped inside the shuttle.

"You knocked," she said, looking surprised.

"I guess I'm out of practice," he said, the corner of his mouth going up. "How are you doin'?"

"Better than Kaylee is. Certainly better than Zoe is." She looked at the floor. "I wish I'd never left."

"You seemed pretty sure when you left that it was the right thing to do," he said. "You can only go off what you were feeling at the time. There was no way of knowing that they'd be gone so soon after you returned."

"Yes," Inara said, "but oftentimes people react the wrong way to how they are feeling."

Mal cocked his head, trying to discern if there was anything hidden in her words. He walked over to the bed and sat next to her on the edge of it. There was silence, then, "did you really want me to ask you to stay?"

She looked at him. "I might have been expecting a goodbye."

"You were the one who suggested we don't say goodbye," he said. "Remember? You said there weren't words to do our 'arrangement' justice."

"That's why you didn't say anything?" Inara asked.

Mal knew the question she was really asking. _So you _were _going to say something? _"Well, I...I try to be polite. Do the right thing, you know. Like...like hey! Remember that time I punched a guy in the face?"

"I remember pulling an all-nighter with you attempting to make you competent enough to save your own life," she said, cracking a smile.

"See?" Mal said, grinning. "This is why I need you here. To keep me alive."

She smiled back, and then they both looked away. Silence. Mal cleared his throat. "Did you miss me?" He blurted before he could stop himself.

She looked at him again. "Yes."

He was expecting that answer less than he had been expecting the question to come out of his parted lips in the first place. He looked at her, startled. "You did?"

She hesitated, then gave a small nod. "What about you?"

He cleared his throat again, shifting his weight and pushing the toe of his boot against the shuttle floor. "Remember when we danced?" He looked at her. "The longer we did, the more enjoyable it was. The more we both relaxed. We both forgot why we were there. Right?"

She blinked, just once, and gave a small nod.

"I don't get moments like that a whole lot," he said. "And they never happened while you were gone."

"We're still dancing, aren't we?" Inara said quietly, her eyes locking on his.

Mal held her gaze momentarily. "Inara," he said, dropping his eyes to the floor.

"Why does everything have to be an allegory, a metaphor...a _hun dan _puzzle?" She shook her head. "Mal, you are so blunt with everyone, all the time, but when it comes to us, you have to put...all these _words_...around..." she was at a sudden loss at how to end the sentence, and her gesticulations were sharp and frustrated.

"Hey," Mal said, "Hey. What do you want from me? Inara. Tell me."

She looked at him. "I...I want..."

"What?"

They stared at each other, her right knee touching his left. "What do you want, Inara?" he asked.

She bit her lip. He'd never seen her do that before. "What I don't want," she said, "is for things between us to get worse. You're a part of my life, Mal. You're a part of who I am. When I was gone, I felt disconnected from myself. I suppose what I want is to never feel that way again."

"I can't say I don't understand," Mal said. He looked away again. "There's people a part of me that're gone forever. And I never know when another part of me is going to be taken away."

"Life's too short," Inara said. "For ifs and maybes. Remember when you said that to me?"

"May recall something along those lines."

"Do you still believe that?"

He looked over at her. "Possibly more so now."

Inara let out a deep breath, wetting her lips with her tongue. Her eyes were locked on Mal's.

"_Inara_," he said in a stage whisper. "_What do you want?_"

"To stay conscious," she said, and before he had the time to wonder what she meant, before he had time to wonder why that sounded eerily familiar, she leaned forward, closing the distance between them, her lips gently, hesitantly touching his own.

The kiss was chaste, tentative, and when it ended, they opened their eyes and regarded each other, two pairs of eyes, each searching the other. Then Mal broke the silence. "In my mind, I was always the one to do that."

Inara broke into a grin and exhaled sharply, resulting in a relieved sounding giggle as she processed his words. "In mine, too," she said, and they both chuckled.

"Actually," Mal said, "in my mind..." he scooted closer to her and put his hand along her jawline, "it was more like_ this._"

She leaned forward when he did, meeting him in the middle, and his hand moved from the side of her face. She expected to feel it come against her side, her hip, or to rest on her knee. Instead, she felt his fingers curling around her own, his right hand in her left, something that, somehow, probably because it was so different from what a client would do, felt almost more romantic than their kiss. Her eyes opened and she pulled back slightly, looking down at their hands.

"Hey," he said quietly, cocking his head as she raised her eyes to meet his again.

Inara looked at him for a long moment, then rose, giving him a small smile. She walked to the door and locked it, then turned to look at him. He was staring at her with widened eyes. "Are...ah...are you?"

"I'm done dancing." She came back over to the bed and sank down on it, one leg tucked underneath her. She reached for his hand and scooted close to him, putting her nose against his. "Mal...will you _stop_ dancing with me?"

He drew back ever so slightly and looked at her for a long moment before he spoke. "No," he said slowly. "I don't want to stop dancing. But...I'd like to begin a different one."

The temporary confusion in her eyes evaporated as his words settled. She smiled again. "Good answer."

**I wanted to write something where Inara initiated them getting together because that seemed more interesting to me, and the thing about them still dancing came partly from JAG and partly from the fact that I'm often lying wide awake at four a.m. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and if you'd like to review, I'd very much appreciate it! :)**


End file.
